Cavendish, Lord Frederick Charles ( born Nov. 30, 1836 , Eastbourne, Sussex, Eng.—died May 6, 1882 , Dublin, Ire. ) British statesmanpolitician, protégé of William Ewart Gladstone, who was murdered by Irish nationalists Fenian extremists the day after his arrival in Dublin as chief secretary to the lord lieutenant of Ireland and as a goodwill emissary from England, at the height of the Irish crisis in 1882.

The second son of the 7th Duke duke of Devonshire, Cavendish entered Parliament in 1865. The year before, he had married Mrs. Gladstone’s niece, Lucy, daughter of the 4th Baron Lyttelton. Gladstone came to admire and trust Lord FrederickCavendish, especially after taking him as private secretary in 1872, and looked to him as the a future leader of the parliamentary Liberal Party. Lord Frederick He was financial secretary to the Treasury from 1880 and, and as suchhe , was the right-hand man of Gladstone, chancellor of the Exchequer as well as prime minister.

In 1882 Gladstone then asked him to undertake the thankless and dangerous office of chief secretary for Ireland. Lord Frederick Cavendish crossed to Dublin on the night of May 5, 1882. The following evening, he walked across Phoenix Park with Thomas H. Burke, the permanent undersecretary for Ireland. Burke was attacked by a party of Irishmen Fenian splinter group armed with knives; , Cavendish tried to defend him, and both were killed. Five of their assassins, members of a secret society , called the Invincibles, were betrayed and hanged in 1883; several others were sentenced to long prison terms. (See Phoenix Park murders.)